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China Digital Times

China Digital Times (CDT; Chinese: 中国数字时代) is a California-based 501(c)(3) organization that runs a bilingual news website covering China.[1] The site focuses on news items which are blocked, deleted or suppressed by China's state censors.[2][3]

China Digital Times
Formation2003; 21 years ago (2003)
FounderXiao Qiang
Type501(c)3 organization
45-5274376
HeadquartersBerkeley, California
Official language
English, Chinese
Websitechinadigitaltimes.net Edit this at Wikidata

History

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The website was started by Xiao Qiang of University of California, Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism in fall 2003. Xiao has asserted that Chinese internet users are using digital tools to create new autonomous forms of political expression and dissent, "changing the rules of the game between state and society".[4]

According to Freedom House, researchers at China Digital Times have reportedly identified over 800 filtered terms, including "Cultural Revolution" and "propaganda department".[5] The types of words, phrases and web addresses censored by the government include names of Chinese high-level leadership; protest and dissident movements; politically sensitive events, places and people; and foreign websites and organizations blocked at network level, along with pornography and other content.[6]

For many years, the site has leaked propaganda from the State Council Information Office, which oversees news websites in China.[7]

The site also publishes the Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon, a wiki-based directory of Chinese Internet language.[8] The project is named after the Grass Mud Horse (cǎo ní mǎ (simplified Chinese: 草泥马; traditional Chinese: 草泥馬)), a pun on the phrase cào nǐ mā (肏你媽), literally, "fuck your mother", and which is one of the Baidu 10 Mythical Creatures.[9] The publication has also covered the backlash against increased censorship from China's independent media, and employees of state media.[10]

In 2009, it published a set of documents leaked by a Baidu employee which revealed events, people and places that were deemed politically sensitive.[6]

In 2013, China Digital Times published an English-language e-book, Decoding the Chinese Internet: A Glossary of Political Slang, which contains Chinese Internet language that criticizes the government.[11][12]

Staff and operations

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Sophie Beach is the Executive Editor of its English site, and her writing about China has appeared in publications including the Los Angeles Times, the Asian Wall Street Journal, the South China Morning Post and The Nation magazine.[13] The Translations Editor is Anne Henochowicz, an alumna of the Penn Kemble Democracy Forum Fellowship at the National Endowment for Democracy. She has written for other publications including Foreign Policy, The China Beat, and the Cairo Review of Global Affairs.[14]

China Digital Times provides content about China for The World Post, a partnership between The Huffington Post and the Berggruen Institute.[15] The China Digital Times website is run by students of the university, with help from contributors from around the world. China Digital Times has been a recipient of funding from the National Endowment for Democracy.[16]

Response by the Chinese government

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See also: Internet censorship in China

A popular section on the China Digital Times site is 'Minitrue', which is short for 'Ministry of Truth'. The sections covers official government directives to media organizations, requiring them to censor or tone down postings on sensitive matters.[17] In 2014, China Digital Times published an article which states that China's censors demanded that article about a crackdown on terrorism be “prominently displayed” on the homepages of online news sites.[18]

References

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  1. ^ Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) (4 February 2013). Attacks on the Press: Journalism on the World's Front Lines. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 52–. ISBN 978-1-118-61129-6.
  2. ^ Yuan, Li (2024-06-04). "As China's Internet Disappears, 'We Lose Parts of Our Collective Memory'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2024-06-04. Retrieved 2024-06-05. China Digital Times, a nonprofit that fights censorship, archives work that has been or is in danger of being blocked.
  3. ^ Congressional-Executive Commission on China (U.S.) (27 October 2016). Congressional-Executive Commission on China Annual Report 2016. Government Printing Office. pp. 71–. ISBN 978-0-16-093479-7.
  4. ^ Diamond, Larry; Marc F. Plattner (26 June 2012). Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy. JHU Press. pp. 77–. ISBN 978-1-4214-0568-1.
  5. ^ CHINA; Freedom on the Net 2012 Archived 2016-04-14 at the Wayback Machine Freedom House
  6. ^ a b MacKinnon, Rebecca; Hickok, Elonnai; Bar, Allon; Lim, Hae-in (29 January 2015). Fostering freedom online: the role of Internet intermediaries. UNESCO Publishing. pp. 110–. ISBN 978-92-3-100039-3.
  7. ^ Burrett, Tina; Kingston, Jeffrey (2019-11-05). Press Freedom in Contemporary Asia. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-429-01303-4. Archived from the original on 2024-06-05. Retrieved 2022-06-17.
  8. ^ "Decoding the Chinese Internet updated edition". MCLC Resource Center. 17 July 2015. Archived from the original on 10 May 2016. Retrieved 27 May 2016.
  9. ^ Joyce C.H. Liu; Nick Vaughan-Williams (21 August 2014). European-East Asian Borders in Translation. Routledge. pp. 171–. ISBN 978-1-135-01153-6.
  10. ^ Schlesinger, David; Henochowicz, Anne; Wang, Yaqiu (2016-03-17). "Why Xi Jinping's Media Controls Are 'Absolutely Unyielding'". Foreign Policy. Archived from the original on 2021-04-10. Retrieved 2016-07-26.
  11. ^ Traganou, Jilly (2020-10-27). Design and Political Dissent: Spaces, Visuals, Materialities. Routledge. p. 16. ISBN 978-1-351-18797-8. Archived from the original on 2024-06-05. Retrieved 2022-06-17.
  12. ^ Perry, Susan; Roda, Claudia (2016-12-07). Human Rights and Digital Technology: Digital Tightrope. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 114. ISBN 978-1-137-58805-0. Archived from the original on 2024-06-05. Retrieved 2022-06-17.
  13. ^ "Sophie Beach". HuffPost. Archived from the original on 2016-06-20. Retrieved 2016-05-24.
  14. ^ "Anne Henochowicz". ChinaFile. Asia Society. 30 September 2015. Archived from the original on 25 May 2016. Retrieved 26 May 2016.
  15. ^ "TV Biopic On Deng Xiaoping Stirs Controversy In China". The Huffington Post. 20 August 2014. Archived from the original on 9 August 2016. Retrieved 24 May 2016.
  16. ^ "China Digital Times provides crucial insight and information about China and the Covid-19". National Endowment for Democracy. 22 April 2020. Archived from the original on 28 May 2022. Retrieved 14 June 2022.
  17. ^ "Website chronicles China's massive effort to control Internet content". mcclatchydc. Archived from the original on 2016-06-01. Retrieved 2016-05-22.
  18. ^ Tiezzi, Shannon. "Details Emerge on China's Anti-Terror Crackdown". The Diplomat. Archived from the original on 2021-03-30. Retrieved 2021-02-12.
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